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As of Sunday, 486 Siskiyou County children with Healthy Families insurance were moved to Medi-Cal. Also on Sept. 1, Siskiyou residents with Medi-Cal were transitioned to the new Partnership HealthPlan.read more »

“You’re expanding managed care as well as moving the Healthy Families children (to Medi-Cal),” said Michele Stillwell-Parvensky, policy and communications associate with the Children’s Defense Fund — California. “We’re definitely concerned that both of these very big health changes are going on at the same time.”read more »

If you don’t have a child with autism, you might not know about Applied Behavioral Analysis. ABA is widely regarded as a necessary and effective treatment. Now many poor children will lose access to this therapy under deals reached in Sacramento last week. Meanwhile, other kids — including those who become insured under the state’s new Obamacare marketplace — may well continue to have access to this therapy.read more »

But before they start patting each other on the back, legislators and the governor shouldn't forget the health and well-being of two vulnerable populations of young people at risk of getting lost in the shuffle: former foster youth and (low-income) children with autism.read more »

When the state decided to transition low-income kids from state-subsidized private insurance — known as Healthy Families –to the state-run Medi-Cal program, families of children with autism were promised that their kids’ treatment would not suffer. But those families soon learned that one especially promising (but expensive) form of treatment was not going to be covered by Medi-Cal.read more »

Supporters of health care reform once again sounded the alarm that California has only four to six weeks left to resolve budget issues that are hampering the timely rollout of Medi-Cal expansion, a key part of Obamacare’s implementation in the state.read more »

Distrust ran high yesterday during part of a budget subcommittee hearing when the subject turned to reinstitution of a managed care organization tax. The MCO tax instituted in 2009 had the singular distinction of being embraced by the ones being taxed because the money was matched by federal dollars and was used to support the Healthy Families program. In the long run, health insurers made their money back and the state had more federal dollars in its coffers.read more »